Julia Cameron

“I think everybody encounters difficulty. It's just more pitched in some people.”

“Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that.”

“Owning something also means owning up to something. It means accepting responsibility, which means, literally, responsibility. When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them, we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are rendered conscious. Each day, each life, is a series of choices, and as we use the lens of writing to view our lives, we see our choices.”

“Writing for the sake of writing, writing that draws its credibility from its very existence, is a foreign idea to most Americans. As a culture, we want cash on the barrel head. We want writing to earn dollars and sense so that it makes sense to us. We have a conviction—which is naive and misplaced—that being published has to do with being “good” while not being published has to do with being “amateur.” ...“Did you write today?”“Yes.”“Then you’re a writer today.”It would be lovely if being a writer were a permanent state that we could attain to. It’s not, or if it is, the permanence comes posthumously.A page at a time, a day at a time, is the way we must live our writing lives. Credibility lies in the act of writing. That is where the dignity is. That is where the final “credit” must come from.”

“We can believe we are being self-reliant and independent, and yet there is still clearly an overarching destiny, a Great Maker. So when we say we have faith in ourselves, we cannot really separate the small self from the large self.”

“So much of our mythology around money centers on the illusion that if we had 'more,' we would be more comfortable and more able to access our creativity. But creativity and prosperity are spiritual matters, not fiscal ones.”

“For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.”

“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.”

“Love is the substance of all life. Everything is connected in love, absolutely everything.”

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”

“Because if you're trying to write and you have unlimited time, you can procrastinate an unlimited account, but if you have limited time, you rush to the page trying to get something down in the little bit of fragment of time that you have, and you may write a great deal that way.”

“And why are we supposed to be serious about God? Did God show up and crack the whip? “You there, Annie in Ohio, I see you laughing a lot and frankly it really pisses Me off . . . “ (50)”

“Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams - their visions, really - we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape.”

“Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.”

“When I ask for help with my creativity, I get it.”

“My mother set us to an activity and let us be.”

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.”

“Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission. The admitting is often very difficult.”

“Art used to be made in the name of faith. We made cathedrals, we made stained-glass windows, we made murals.”

“Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out.”